“What’s lacking are the products – the SMRs. It’s not the government’s job to pick winners and losers in the race to develop the products. That’s how free markets are supposed to work.”

The Department of Energy last Tuesday (March 24) announced a $900 million pot of money to “de-risk the deployment of Generation III+ light-water small modular reactors (Gen III+ SMR).” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said (although it’s more likely someone wrote the words for him), “America’s nuclear energy renaissance starts now.”

Really? The new solicitation is a dead ringer for the Biden administration’s October 2024 $900 SMR solicitation, in many cases word-for-word, including a ‘two-tier’ structure: $800 million for the first, $100 million for the second. The residue of the Biden initiative has been scrubbed from DOE’s website, probably in hopes that no one would remember it.…

“Since its 2009 formation under Obama, ARPA-E within the U.S. Department of Energy has awarded about $4.2 billion to some 1,700 energy projects. The latest nuclear revival continues a long string of starts-and-stops for a technology that has been more promise than performance.”

Energy Secretary Chris Wright and the White House appear to be headed for a clash on major DOE spending programs, including the agency’s Loan Programs Office and the main research arm, Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-Energy).

Last week, DOE earmarked another $57.8 million in federal money to the Palisades nuclear plant resurrection in Michigan, part of a $1.52 DOE billion loan to Holtec International for the project.

Since DOE’s Loan Programs Office approved the deal last September, the agency has doled out almost $96 million for the restart of the 805-MW reactor that shut down in 2022, starting with $38 million this January.…

“Politicians, donors, think tanks, and media outlets in the UK and U.S. are working increasingly closely to scupper climate policies and promote fossil fuel extraction,” reports the Progressive Left climate group DeSmog. The chart below attempts to capture the players, but far too many are missing from the U.S. side. [1]

Let DeSmog know that you want in Now! Please contact Adam Barnett, the author of the article above, or DeSmog head Brendan DeMelle, at editor@desmog.com.

[1] A live interactive map can be accessed by scrolling down here.

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Other DeSmog posts at MasterResource:

• Chris Wright: Guilty as Charged February 4, 2025
• Heartland Institute in the UK/EU: Guilty as Charged! January 31, 2025
• DeSmog “Climate Disinformation” Database: Nominate Yourself! August 1, 2024
• DeSmog on IEA-UK: Guilty as Charged!

Are you profiled in the DeSmog database? Please consider nominating yourself with a message (per their invitation). Please provide quotations about your views about climate alarmism and forced energy transformation. Describe the anti-economic, anti-ecological features of wind, solar, and batteries. And explain why your views are part of the great debate. (DeSmog’s categories are Stance on Climate Change, Key Quotes, and Key Deeds.)

Their database is nearing one thousand (!). With hundreds more profiles, what began as a “disinformer” expose becomes an impressive listing of go-to professionals for the open-minded. So much for the “science is settled” and “the experts tell us” arguments.

The economy and the environment need your voice to help save both from Big Environmentalism and the Climate Industrial Complex. Submit your nomination, proudly, here.…